And the girls in Boots
And the boys from Fitness First
Convene before the Clinique counter
Who knows what they say
From above its like a river
People flow into the station
A tidal wave of brown shoes,
Grey shoes, white shoes, black shoes
Every pair matching shoes
Trip, slip, tap.
Tickets at the ready
They follow lines they cannot see
Ebb, flow, flow like the tide
They bend around the ticket machine
Over the waterfall stairs
That lead to the toilets
They constant rhythm of a beeping gate
Ticket holders seep along the platform
At first coalescing but then,
The lines grow ragged and thin
The front of the train
The back of the train
In reverse on the platform
There is the faint smell of coffee
And clutched newspapers
Doors open
They swish, they shush
Commuters ooze inside
Each one gaming for that favourite spot
Their coveted seat
By the window
Not by the window.
Mythical non-existent leg space
Space for a bag
If the centre of the station is a stomach
These are the chambers for waste disposal
Its 6pm and its convulsing
People chewed up,
Churned out.
Allocated, randomly
However conscious it might seem
There’s a late platform change
A tidal surge
From one place to another
Like a lunch being heaved
From one bin to the next
Its peak hour
Its like the station has diarrhoea
No one stays
Everything goes straight through
Sometimes fast.
Sometimes slow
But everyone has a movement
All played to the soundtrack,
of a security announcement
Don’t leave your bags alone
Even if that means leaving your children behind
Although they don’t say that
We all know thats what they mean
They blow up bags not children
Make sure your children aren’t dressed as bags
All of us can recite it, that announcement,
But none of us have ever heard it
There are stairs and toilets
And side attractions that we never see
There’s an information desk somewhere
We are altogether
And yet all alone
Except for the couple kissing
We all look away
And then like a sick child
Denied the bathroom for too long
The station throws us out of every orifice
We plummet out of holes into the darkness
Headed for the sewers of suburbia
Before tomorrow
When like a recurring virus we infect the station floors again.
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A Tuesday Latte 